The sixth trip (and a quick one) will be to install multiple custom timelapse cameras with Jeff Dale of TRLcam in the southern portion of the whooper flyway. The first stop was Aransas NWR in Texas. One camera was installed on an observation deck overlooking the salt marsh, another off a boardwalk in the salt marsh, and a third on a windmill platform above a freshwater wetland. The first whoopers in the migration train were just arriving on their wintering grounds from Wood Buffalo.

On the way north, we installed four more timelapse cameras in areas federally designated as critical whooping crane migratory habitat—two at Oklahoma’s Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge and two at Quivira NWR in Kansas. Eventually, we hope to have 12 running all at once along the whooper flyway from Canada to Texas.

At Cheyenne Bottoms, another critical habitat outside Great Bend, Kansas, I lucked out and intercepted the Church Family. The male remains aggressive toward other whoopers, just like in Saskatchewan, and chases them away from his mate and chick if they get too close. The chick is getting larger and whiter in plumage.